Samuel, son of Samuel and Mary (Palmer) Stanton, was born at Preston,
(Connecticut) April
17, 1759, and died at Bellefonte Center, Center County, Pennsylvania, April
15, 1816. In
June, 1789, he bought a tract of three hundred acres in Wayne County,
Pennsylvania, and
became the first actual settler in Mount Pleasant township; he had
previously done some
surveying in that section. The day following his purchase he bought nearly
three thousand
acres more. About a year later he began to work this land, and he brought
his family here in
April, 1791. During the following winter he and his family nearly died of
starvation. When they
were almost beyond hope, a passing hunter killed a deer near their cabin;
then discovering
their plight, he generously and effectually relieved them. In 1796 Mr. Stanton
was appointed
justice of the peace in Northhampton county. When Wayne County was
organized, two years
later, he was a commissioner to build the courthouse, and he was engaged
in many
enterprises in Wayne county. In October, 1814, he was appointed associate
judge of that
county. Near the close of his life, however, he removed westward, and
purchased seventeen
hundred acres of land on Marvin Creek, in what is now Hamlin township,
McKean county,
and three or four hundred acres in Liberty township. In the latter township he
erected a store
and log house; he also planned for many buildings. His project was, to bring
two hundred
families to what is now Port Allegany. In this new home he was
commissioner of a state road;
business growing out of this position called him to Harrisburg. Taking his
family, he went as
far as the west branch of the Susqehanna; and it was while stopping at
Bellefonte to visit a
friend, as he was making his journey to Harrisburg, that he died. When he
had started with
his family, they had just had a visitation of typhoid in which seven of his
children had been
sick. Mrs. Stanton, after his death, continued the journey to Port Allegany.
The main body
of the intended colonists settled in Ashtabula county, Ohio. Judge Stanton
was a pious
christian man, a member of the Free Communion Baptists, he was the
auther of about fifty
hymns. He was a man of lively imagination, well developed intellect and
unusual power of
concentration. It is said that he read over two thousand books, and could
discourse
intelligently about their contents. In disposition he was cheerful, entertaining,
yet not jovial
and with a thirst for information.
From the "Genealogy and Personal History of Northern Pennsylvania" Vol.1,
p123